"Well … There's always a chance, isn't there?"
An exclamation of contempt followed by the scratch of a match, then again silence, fraught, so Esther felt, with tension. Who, what were these people? She must try to steal a glance at them. Cautiously she turned her head, then, finding both the occupants of the next table were looking the other way, she indulged in a good inspection.
The woman claimed her attention first. Young—a very young thirty-five, Esther decided—blonde with delicate transparency, and lovely; her natural beauty was accentuated by careful make-up and clothes so exquisite that they could be called "elegant" without a misuse of the word. It seemed evident that she was wealthy. Her gown of filmy black had the cachet of an exclusive house, the expensive simplicity that serves so well as a background for wonderful jewels. Against it gleamed a heavy strand of glistening pearls—"Real ones, too!" thought Esther—on one slender arm slid negligently half a dozen diamond bangles, on the hand which supported her chin an enormous square diamond blazed. Her skin, shadowed by her little close black hat, was dazzling, her eyes large, grey flecked with gold, and shaded by long dark lashes. Altogether there was about her the clear beauty of a star, which even the traces of emotion now discernible could not dim.
And her companion—what was he like? Esther glanced at him and gave a start. It was the young Englishman who had come out of the doctor's house, the man she had seen before somewhere—she still did not recall where. Studied at close range he revealed points of interest. He was dressed with that perfection crowned with negligence which the Englishman of the upper classes so admirably achieves. He was, in fact, unmistakably a gentleman, at least by birth, though his bored manner held a hint of insolence, a suggestion of the bounder. His hazel eyes, glancing about with irritable restlessness, were curiously devoid of any depths, his mouth showed a mixture of weakness and obstinacy, devil-may-care courage and lack of moral stamina. An after-the-war product, no doubt, nervy and jumpy, frayed by stimulants and late hours, and yet, with all this, attractive. Yes, curiously attractive, there was no denying it.
"Waiter—where's that blasted waiter gone?"
He turned in Esther's direction, and for an instant his eyes met hers and took her in, though with little show of interest. Seeing him full-face she suddenly recalled him. Of course! When she and Miss Ferriss had first arrived, they had seen him on two occasions lunching in the Carlton grill, in company with a swarthy over-dressed Spanish-looking woman and her daughter. She remembered now. Shrewd old Miss Ferriss had said about him:
"Esther, that young Englishman over there is very nice-looking, but I can tell you he's what we call at home a cake-hound. I can always spot them!"
Esther smiled at the recollection.
"Waiter—bring me a 'doctor'—will you? And hold on—what do you want,
Thérèse?"
"Rien—rien du tout. Non, tenez—du thé de Chine, simplement."